Harvey Brownstone Interviews Legendary Actress, Writer & Director, Renée Taylor

[TMC]

About Harvey's guest:

Today’s special guest, Renée Taylor, is a highly popular and beloved, Oscar nominated, multi-award winning actress, writer, producer and director who has been dazzling audiences for over 60 years.

We all remember her portrayal of the quintessential Jewish mother, “Sylvia Fine” - Fran Drescher’s mother - on the hit TV series “The Nanny”, for which she received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. But her stellar career and body of work extend far beyond that popular show.

On Broadway, she starred in 3 plays that she also wrote: “Lovers and Other Strangers”, “It Had to be You”, and “If You Ever Leave Me, I’m Going With You”, which she wrote AND directed . And she was nominated for an Academy Award, along with her beloved husband Joe Bologna, for co-writing the 1970 movie “Lovers and Other Strangers”. She and Joe also wrote and starred in the 1971 movie, “Made For Each Other”, which earned them a nomination for a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy. And they wrote and directed the wonderful 1989 film, “It Had to be You”, based on their Broadway show. They also co-directed and co-starred in “Love is All There Is”.

And who can ever forget our guest as Ava Braun in Mel Brooks' classic 1967 movie, “The Producers”? She also appeared on the big screen in “The Detective”, “A New Leaf”, “Last of the Red Hot Lovers”, “Lovesick”, “White Palace”, “Delirious”, “Boynton Beach Club”, “The Do-Over”, “How to be a Latin Lover”, and many more great movies.

On television, besides “The Nanny”, you’ve seen her in dozens of shows including “St. Elsewhere”, “Thirtysomething”, “Daddy Dearest”, “Dream On”, “Everwood”, “Law & Order: SVU”, “How I Met Your Mother”, to name only a few. And she’s appeared in numerous TV movies and miniseries including “A Match Made in Heaven”, “Pandemic”, “Weird Loners”, and “Bedrooms”, which she and Joe Bologna co-wrote, co-directed and co-starred in. She and Joe also co-wrote and co-starred in the 1974 TV movie “Paradise”, for which they received an Emmy Award nomination for Best Writing. And they WON an Emmy Award for writing the brilliant TV movie, “Acts of Love and Other Comedies”.

And if all of that weren’t enough, our guest is also a best-selling author of a very entertaining book entitled, “My Life on a Diet: Confessions of a Hollywood Diet Junkie.” And a few years ago, she went on tour with her hilarious one-woman show called “My Life on a Diet”.